Wolf Bite
by Ivypool5
Summary: When Mabel and Dipper get lost in the woods, they have to wait until morning to find their way out. But in the middle of the night, Mabel's found herself in deep trouble. Now, with the two stranded, life would be hard enough without Mabel being bitten by a bloodthirsty werewolf. (Rated T for minor language and minor gore/blood)
1. Lost

The noonday sun filtered through gaps in the lush, green tree leaves, speckling the forest floor with golden light. Small rustling sounds could be heard amongst thick undergrowth, hinting that little creatures were scuffling along the ground. The air was hot, revealing that it would be a typical summer day. All was peaceful.

Two twins could be seen walking along in no particular direction. The first, nose buried in a weathered old book, muttered to himself, paying no attention to the direction he was walking in. The second was doing the exact opposite. Falling behind the first, she kept herself busy by kicking up rocks and picking beautiful wildflowers that grew on the nearby bushes. The two of them had not been following a trail, but instead were trampling over small plants and avoiding large fallen branches.

"Mabel," the first addressed the second, looking up from his book for a moment to catch a glimpse of what lie ahead of him, "Are you sure that we're going in the right direction? I can't seem to find the page on centaurs, if there even is one." The boy cleared his throat and went back to analyzing the torn book.

"I'm sure, Dipper!...Maybe," Mabel said to her brother, her tone of voice making it sound like she was rather the opposite of sure. The two had been walking for hours trying to find what Mabel had claimed to be a centaur. So far, they hadn't had much luck.

"Well, I can't find any pages on them in the Journal, so it sounds to me like you just saw someone riding a horse around or something."

"Someone going horseback riding in the woods? I've never heard of that." Mabel said doubtfully, casting a troubled look behind her, "But whatever you say Dipper. We've been out here for hours. Maybe we should head back home?"

Dipper stopped in his tracks suddenly, and his sister almost ran straight into him. Looking around with worried eyes, Dipper finally spoke, "Mabel, how are we going to get back to the Shack. I don't even know where we are anymore."

Mabel didn't reply, just dropped the flowers she was holding, and looked down. Silence hung in the air for a good few seconds, but those seconds felt like an eternity. Then Mabel finally spoke;

"Why didn't you say anything before, Dipper?" Her voice faltered mid-sentence as she tried to figure out why Dipper would blatantly ignore their own safety.

Dipper just frowned and said, "I wanted to do something you wanted for a change. You're always saying that we never get to do stuff that you want to do. Or maybe that was just you wanting to make me excited at the possibility of you finding something." He shrugged, "Either way, we're lost."

Mabel sniffled a bit, then nodded. They were stuck in a thick part of the woods, and neither of the, could see a way out. "I guess we'd better turn around and make an attempt to get out of this forest."

Dipper said nothing, just nodded. He was slightly surprised by how well Mabel was taking the news of them being lost. Though, he shouldn't exactly underestimate his sister. He'd learned that many times before, and in the face of severe danger, even Mabel could become serious. Maybe it was just the way her wiring worked. Or maybe it happened to be a fact of humanity.

After almost an hour of walking, the light of the sun began to fade and dusk fell. It became harder and harder to see as the shadows closed in, concealing anything that may have been hidden in the forest. The twins, not thinking ahead, had neglected to bring along a flashlight. More than several times in the last half hour they had tripped over scattered branches and rocks. And, as the last light of the sun disappeared, their remaining hopes dwindled.

Dipper looked up toward the sky when they reached a rather small clearing. A full moon was clearly visible amongst the twinkling stars. He sighed and sat down on a nearby rock, and Mabel did the same, sitting back-to-back with him. It was almost useless now. They'd have to stop and continue walking when dawn hit, otherwise one of them might get seriously hurt. By tripping on a loose stone or otherwise.

Ten minutes had passed, and the twins still sat in the same position on the rock. One by one more stars appeared in the night sky, and Dipper silently started to count them while Mabel fiddled with the folds in her sweater. It grew cold, the warmth of the summer sun no longer there. The two shivered, again wishing that they had brought a flashlight.

It was then that Mabel stood up, declaring that she would be gone for only a minute.

"What are you going to do?" Dipper protested, "You have to stay here, Mabel!"

"Relax, I'll be careful. I'm gonna' go out to find some sticks. Maybe we can start a fire."

Dipper was about to protest, but decided that it was worth a shot. Mabel told him that she wouldn't stray too far, and would be extremely careful while finding her way around. So she left Dipper on the rock and began her stick hunt.

The boy wasn't on the rock long before he heard a shriek, and by the tone it sounded suspiciously like his sister's. He sprang up, racing toward the direction of the scream. As he grew closer to the source, his body started to warm up and he ran on even faster.

What greeted him there was more than a terrible sight. Mabel had been cornered in between two rocks by a large looking animal. The shadows were too thick for him to see what it was, and it took all he had just to squint to see his sister.

Without making a sound, he felt along the ground for a large stone, and threw it at the animal. He could hear a dull thump and a horrific animalistic growl. Dipper threw another stone. There was a sickening cracking noise, and he could hear leaves rustling and twigs snapping. The animal had gone, probably because Dipper had broken one of it's bones, judging by the splintering crack that would make anyone's legs weak.

Dipper carefully moved closer to where Mabel lay. She had passed out in all the commotion, but seemed okay for the most part. Pushing down the panic rising in his body, Dipper sat next to his sister and waited for morning sun to rise. There wasn't much he could do without light to guide his eyes. So, as the hours went on, he tried to keep himself calm, eventually falling into a deep sleep.


	2. The Wound

Mabel awoke in the morning to the weight of Dipper leaning against her, his head resting on her shoulder. She slowly opened her eyes to look at her twin, and couldn't help but notice that he was snoring extremely loud. Unlike his adorable kitten sneezes, his snoring sounded more like he had a sinus infection. Dipper's hair was a ruffled mess of twigs and leaves. His face was smeared with dirt, and his hat had drifted to the ground beside him while he had been asleep. As much as Mabel didn't wish to wake her brother while he was sleeping this peacefully, she had to, otherwise they would be wasting precious daylight. But, after a second or two of deep thought, Mabel decided to let him rest for five more minutes while she analyzed their current situation

The confused girl tried to recall the events of the night before to no avail. She remembered a vicious, animalistic growling and Dipper emerging out of the bushes, white as a sheet. But her memory was cut off there.

Nudging him in the arm a bit more hard than she meant, Mabel attempted to wake her brother up from his deep sleep. Her twin's head shot up off of Mabel's shoulder almost instantly, and his eyes flicked open faster than she had ever seen before. The look of utter fear and horror on his face told his sister plainly that Dipper had been having a nightmare.

"W-wha- oh." He started, then realized what was going on. Mabel could see his expression soften, but Dipper's brow remained furrowed in concern. Jaw moving ever so slightly as if he was biting the inside of his cheek with frustration, he looked at his sister. Rising to his feet, careful not to scrape his skin against the rock he had been laying against, Dipper brushed dirt off of his shorts, "Sorry, I just didn't get as much sleep last night as I would've wanted to," he said airily, then, pausing for a quick second, he added in a tone of voice sprinkled with urgency, "Are you okay?"

Mabel nodded, "You don't have to worry about me. I'm fi-ouch!" she had begun to stand up, when mid-sentence she was cut off by her own exclamation of pain as her arm brushed the jagged and dirt-ridden rock.

"Mabel!"

The girl rolled up her left sweater sleeve, revealing a shallow bite in her forearm. She cringed at the sight of it, screwing her nose up in disgust and fear. The skin around the wound was red and swollen slightly. Whatever had bitten her had drawn minimal blood, which was why none had leaked through her clothes.

The twins both looked at each-other, and Mabel let out a small squeak. She saw Dipper's eyes widen, and his nose twitch slightly. Mabel knew that look. Why wouldn't she, after knowing him all her life? Dipper always showed those little signs whenever he was distressed. And right now, by the looks of his huge eyes and general twitchiness, he was about to have a full-blown panic-attack.

"What?" Mabel said expectantly. She gave her brother a weak smile to calm him a little, but it didn't last very long. The act was hard to keep up when the more calm of the two twins looked like he was about to faint.

"I'm pretty sure I know what bit you, Mabel." he looked at the area around him, trying not to let his voice quaver, "I don't know how i'm going to explain this, where's the Journal? I-" Dipper paused and closed his eyes, using his quivering fingers to massage his temples, "I left it in the clearing, didn't I."

Mabel frowned, then looked down and delicately touched the bite. The light tap of her fingers on the exposed skin stung fairly badly, and pulled her hand away instantly. Then, returning her gaze to Dipper, she said, "It doesn't matter, just tell me what left this mark."

Dipper looked back up at her and frowned. It was several minutes before he said anything. In those several minutes Mabel spent staring at her brother with anticipation, she realized how old he looked. Even though there was no doubt that her brother was still twelve, not even a teen yet, he definitely looked older. There was a certain kind of wisdom etched in his face and the ever-present bags under his eyes. He'd seen a lot that summer. They both had.

Dipper broke the silence, apparently deciding to rip off the band-aid quick, "Mabel, it's a werewolf bite. I saw it while I was flipping through the Journal. See how the bite isn't that deep?" Her brother was talking extremely fast now. It was either out of fear or disbelief in their circumstances,"It didn't _need_ to latch on to you. All it needed was to break the skin."

Mabel, even though she had expected the news to be extremely horrific, instantly wished that she hadn't asked about the bite. Rather than address the issue rationally, she almost automatically assumed the worst, "Th-that can't be right, Dipper! I'm not a monster!"

The sympathetic and fearful look that her brother gave her said otherwise, "I'm sorry, Mabel."

"What?"

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry I got us into this mess. I-"

"Dipper, I was the one who said we should come out here. This isn't your fault."

"Yes, it is my fault Mabel! It's my fault because i'm the one who agreed to go with you into the woods! And it's my fault because I didn't bring a flashlight, or stick to a trail, or-"

"Dipper, stop," Mabel said, her voice airy filled with lingering fear and horror, "No matter how bad our situation is, it will never be your fault."

Dipper looked at his sister doubtfully, but said nothing. He only nodded, blinking his tired eyes slowly but thoughtfully. Mabel knew that he wanted to keep the argument going, but losing so much sleep over the whole summer adds up. She was just glad that neither of them were crying by now.

"Um, we should probably start trying to find our way back now." Mabel tried, voice faltering, "I can't imagine how worried Grunkle Stan is."

Dipper didn't do anything to indicate that he had registered her words, so Mabel just turned around in the direction of the clearing so that her brother could retrieve the Journal. Then, with a emotionally-exhausted twin in tow, Mabel attempted to find her way toward the Mystery Shack.


End file.
